Projects

Pavement Management Implementation

The Problem: The Roads & Drainage Division of Polk County, Florida needed a new, systematic, consistent and reproducible method of determining priorities and optimal timing of improvements to sustainably manage the pavement preservation of its roadway system. The County therefore wanted to identify and implement a new pavement management system and selected The Kercher Group to help them achieve this goal by providing pavement asset management and engineering guidance.

 The Solution: The Kercher Group conducted a business process review of the current As-Is processes and software capabilities, and identified requirements. Kercher then conducted a condition survey of the county’s roads and created a pavement condition survey rating manual, a data quality management manual, new set of indices and reporting as desired by Polk County to support a consistent method of identifying optimum timing of treatments. Kercher then undertook a task to evaluate and compare the current software platform used by the County with available agreed upon pavement management software packages, and ultimately help the County select a new system to best meet the previously established needs and goals.  Upon selection of a new pavement management system, Kercher worked with the County to identify the necessary engineering configuration inputs to the new system to meet the needs of their business processes.  Kercher then configured the software solution, tested and validated the results to ensure they met the County’s needs.  Kercher also produced a series of detailed reports, developed project work plan processes, and Standard Operating Procedures for users and stakeholders to manage the process far into the future.  Finally, Kercher provided an Executive presentation to ensure that the entire solution was understood by the ones who ultimately will have to approve future pavement budget expenditures so that they realized the objective budget justification process now being employed by County Engineers in the evaluation of pavement budget needs.

Benefits: Based on this project, Polk County were able to obtain a thorough independent review of their current practices which resulted in multiple recommendations for process and system improvements. With the subsequent implementation phase of this project, these improvements help the County make better, more strategic and optimized, pavement planning and programming decisions. This improved decision making process will in turn help the County justify and maintain a sustainable funding stream for a full range of treatments, backed up by a new, optimized, and data driven pavement management framework.

 Responsibility: Asset Management Program Management

Components:

• Business Process Review
• Condition Survey
• Software Systems Evaluation

Businesses Process Review– Kercher conducted a review of the County’s current business processes related to its Pavement Resurfacing Program. Kercher worked closely with key staff to:

• Review current practices and policies.
• Identify and assess suggested refinements in practices and policies.
• Review existing software capabilities.
• Identify specific software requirements to best meet the County’s business processes and necessary system capabilities.

Pavement Condition Survey and Methodology Development– Kercher developed a new condition rating methodology and developed definitions of the critical distresses to be evaluated, as well as, the severities and extents of those distresses. Individual condition indices were developed for each distress type, as well as, multiple combined condition indices including structural, environmental (preservation) and functional indices. Kercher then completed a Pavement Condition Survey of County roadways. Based on the survey, Kercher computed distress indices for comparison with the County’s existing process which validated the need for the business change.  Kercher also developed a Data Quality Management process for the County to implement to ensure consistency among their in-house data collection staff.

Requirements Development and Software Evaluation– Kercher reviewed various aspects of the selected software solutions in sufficient detail to support the County’s decision process regarding Pavement Management development. As part of this effort, Kercher assisted the County in completing a comprehensive evaluation of pavement management software solutions, including the development of the detailed evaluation criteria based on a review of analytical capabilities, data governance, integration with the County’s existing systems and overall user experience.

Pavement Management Implementation– Upon the finalization of the software selection phase, Kercher conducted a full implementation by developing the software configuration needs, developing the deterioration models, completing software configuration, system testing, development of Standard Operating Procedures and staff training of the software.

All tasks were completed on time and within budget.